A product intended for sale is generally produced each year in vast quantities to satisfy consumer demand, where the consumer may be the general public or a business enterprise. Traditionally, product manufacturers have relied on sales made in previous years to estimate the levels necessary for the upcoming year. However, guesstimating or employing “rules of thumb” carry the risk of manufacturing to significantly offset or out of date targets. Further, such techniques do not necessarily allow the manufacturing process to be optimized in terms of utilizing the raw materials to their fullest extent or in terms of maintaining a product having consistent component attribute profiles, for example taste, shelf life and costs, despite variances in the supply of the components of the product.
Products often contain a plurality of different components; for example sandwich filler may be constituted by a variety of different types of components—the composition determining the overall taste, texture and other properties of the resulting sandwich filler and consequently the sandwich. It, therefore, remains an important aspect of product production to maintain the properties of the product components to the extent that a consumer would fail to recognize a difference in the final product.
Consumer demand and price sensitivity are also important aspects to consider in product production. The volume of a product produced should be sufficient to meet consumer demand at a price consumers will bear.
Some of the problems and issues associated with existing and known product production methods may be due to the small number (three to four) of local experts in a given field making important decisions, which decisions can on occasion be conservative and be based on high levels of assumption and uncertainty. The experts may rely on experience and a rule of thumb which the reader will acknowledge may not always be an accurate way to apply processes consistently. Such techniques and procedures are often restricted in terms of the low level of critical data that is able to be shared among decision making parties.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide a mechanism to link consumer demand with manufacturing supply, while enhancing the efficiency of the production process so that waste of raw material is minimized and product attribute profile consistency is regulated and maintained.